Polish president vetoes judiciary laws amid EU and public outcry

Bloomberg

Poland’s president vetoed part of a judicial overhaul that’s triggered one of the country’s deepest political crises since the fall of communism and touched off debate in the European Union over how to confront members that flaunt democratic values.
Dealing a blow to the ruling party that backed his presidency, Andrzej Duda struck down bills that would have replaced Poland’s Supreme Court judges and revamped the Judicial Council, which makes key personnel decisions. His decision followed eight-days of nationwide protests by tens of thousands of Poles in defense of court independence and an EU threat of sanctions against the bloc’s largest beneficiary of development funds. The zloty rebounded after its worst day of 2017 on Friday.
“Poland’s legal system does need a thorough reorganization, but above all it needs to provide a sense of security,” Duda said on Monday in televised comments. “And no change of the legal system should open a divide between society and the state.”
The partial veto erects an obstacle for the ruling Law & Justice party, which since taking power in 2015 has pushed through laws that have challenged the EU’s democratic principles and sparked warnings about a drift toward authoritarian rule. Criticism has flowed from fellow states in the 28-member bloc and the US State Department. On Saturday, US Senator John McCain called the court revamp “one step back for democracy.”

‘A Breather’
“Duda’s veto surely offers a breather, but it depends a lot on whether the ruling party will continue with the attempts to control the judiciary or whether they’ll back down,” said Paul Ivan, a Brussels-based analyst at the European Policy Center. “The situation remains very unstable.”
The zloty snapped a four-day drop and bonds rallied. The Polish currency gained 0.6 percent against the euro having slumped 1.5 percent last week, the biggest losses since November.
The vetoes marked only a partial victory for the protesters. Duda told lawmakers to rewrite the two bills he rejected within two months and he said he’d
approve a third giving the justice minister the right to nominate the heads of local courts, stripping that power from the court of
appeal.
The European Commission is monitoring “the events and the situation in Poland very closely” and will address the matter on Wednesday, spokesman Margaritis Schinas said in Brussels following Duda’s announcement. “Things are changing even as we speak,” he said.
‘Bad Decision’
Lech Walesa, the leader of the Solidarity movement that helped bring down communism more than a quarter of a century ago, welcomed the vetoes. But he called Duda’s approval of the law on lower courts “a bad decision” and urged Poles to continue protests. “It was a difficult decision for President Duda,” Walesa told TVN24. “It’s reassuring that the nation is awakening. There is always time to improve things.”
Law & Justice legislator Jacek Sasin said he was disappointed by Monday’s development, which marks the biggest policy split to date between the ruling party and Duda.
“Yes, there were protests, but that’s how it is in a democratic country,” he told TVP Info. “There are also millions of those who voted for Law & Justice and the president, also because we flagged judicial reform. Today’s Polish judiciary has uncontrolled remnants of communism.